The 2024 European championship tracks: Slovakia Ring analyzed by Lorenzo Travisanutto
- Francesca Zito
- Jun 20, 2024
- 2 min read
After over a month, the CIK-FIA European Championship is ready to make its return, this time at the Slovakia Karting Center. The OK and OKJ classes will fight on the Slovakian circuit, coming back here three weeks later, after the 3rd round of the COTF. The multiple times world champion Lorenzo Travisanutto analyzed for us the track where the 3rd round of the European Championship will be held, hazarding even some predictions on who’ll be the favourites for this weekend.
Key points: chances to overtake and experience
In occasion of the appointment at Val D’Argenton, we highlighted how overtaking was easy, since the tyre degradation wasn’t such a big deal and drivers could be close one to another without suffering that much. Here it’s the same: the tyre degradation is not a huge problem like in Valencia, but overtaking is more complicated due to the track design. The Slovakia Ring can be defined an “old style” circuit, since it’s really tight, the straights are short and the corners are very tight as well. For this reason, qualifying is fundamental, because who’s leading can defend his position easily:
“When you’re right behind a driver who’s very good at defending his position, it’s really difficult to overtake.”
Another key point is the experience, that makes the difference in tracks like this one, as we saw at the COTF few weeks ago, and as Travisanutto explains:
“although Turney didn’t have an excellent pace at the COTF, he managed to win the race thanks to his experience.”
Regarding the tyres degradation, as we said earlier, they have a good grip and the degradation is low, but they usually overheat, so the drivers must have a clean driving style, especially during traction and braking.
What to expect from the third round
Just like for the other two rounds, we don’t expect big changes from the COTF here either, rain aside:
“the rain is still a big question mark: KR drivers had a really strong pace, Parolin was quite good as well, while CRG struggled a bit. Birel, especially with Morgatto, showed a promising speed.”
So, for the Senior class, amongst the favourites we find Turney, that will try his best to confirm the positive result achieved at the COTFC, and Morgatto who, as said previously, will use his experience to take the win.
In OKJ, the names are always the same ones: Costoya, fresh from the success at the COTF, Baglin and Schaufler, that few weeks ago, right on this track, managed to get the 2nd and 3rd place. We keep an eye on the brit driver Marsh, who gained 15 spots at the COTF, in a track where we said it’s really difficult to overtake, crossing the line in 4th place. Let’s not look over Coronel as well, who currently sits second in the COTF standings, but needs to climb up the European Championship standings, where he’s currently P11.
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